Microsoft Settles Streaming Lawsuit

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

March 11, 2005, 12:14 PM

Microsoft has settled with multimedia company Burst over allegations that Redmond used trade information obtained from several meetings with Burst to develop its own version of software to stream audio and video over the Internet.

In a statement on its Web site, Burst said that an agreement had been reached with Microsoft and both parties hoped to finalize it by the end of next week. Also, a court hearing on the matter that was scheduled to take place Thursday in Baltimore had been cancelled.

"We have reached a settlement in principle with Burst.com resolving all issues between the companies," a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to BetaNews in a statement. "Details of the settlement are confidential until it is completed."

The lawsuit, first filed in 2002, says that Microsoft was apparently interested in Burst's technology for multimedia streaming. Several meetings were held where the technology was discussed, and Burst alleges that after these meetings, Microsoft quickly developed its own software based on the technology.

Microsoft has previously said it had done nothing wrong.

Then, in October of last year, Burst accused Microsoft in a court motion of destroying documents and e-mail pertaining to the case in order to avoid prosecution. Microsoft replied that the destroyed documents had nothing to do with the litigation.